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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The Joys (cough, cough) of Having a Young Cat

Okay then! It's been about a month since my wife and I adopted a cat a smidge above a year old. Her tail hooks when she walks (see picture at right), so we named her Hooker. We're evil and funny like that. We get to say stuff like: "Hooker's in the toilet!" or "Hooker! Stop that," which is fun. It hasn't gotten old yet, and knowing my wife and me, it won't. Ever. ;-) No matter how much Hooker tries to get back at us for naming her Hooker. Because, ya know, she's a wild critter, that one. After years with older cats (and a middle-aged dog), my wife and I had forgotten what having young 'uns in the house is like.A bit of background first: our fourteen-year-old cat, Dopey, died in October from kidney failure. Surviving her were Chester (dog, eight years old) and Flirt (cat, now fourteen also). Dopey and Flirt had long since passed into the cat realm of glorious naps all day and not caring much about toys, although Dopey did chase after a laser beam for a bit a few months before she died.Enter Hooker and the joys of having a young cat. The boundless, amazing energy! The places she gets to and reaches! (The kitchen sink! In the toilet! Whole body under dresser drawers!) It's awesome watching her and her joys of exploration, even if some of these "exploration" moments entail poo. Yep, Hooker does something Flirt and Dopey never did. She'll knock poo out of the litter boxes and play with it, knock it under furniture out of her reach. Good thing my wife is hearing. If it were just me, I would probably not realize. We're using the water gun on Hooker for that and trying to empty the litter boxes multiple times a day, and hopefully that'll help. Extended laser beam sessions certainly aren't enough to tire Hooker out.So, my wife and I have the best of both worlds. We have Flirt, a cat who'll let us pet her anytime, and the rambunctious Hooker who isn't much of a pet-ee/lap cat yet. (Jury's still out on if we're going to get a "play pal"--third cat-- for Hooker. Chester may be enough for now.) I still think about Dopey every day, and that probably won't change for a while. One of my grandmothers said that people these days are much more attached to their pets than people in olden days were. I think she's right.Here's a picture of Hooker being mischievous in Chester's crate, and
here's another picture of Hooker and Chester, fast friends.